Why Emotional Regulation Might Mean Everything, with Terri Duncan, CCC-SLP

The primary purpose of Uniquely Human, the podcast, is to educate and inform. The views expressed during all episodes are solely those of the individuals involved and do not constitute educational or medical advice. Listeners should consult with professionals familiar with each individual or family for specific guidance. Uniquely Human The Podcast is produced by Elevated Studio. Music is graciously provided by Matt Savage of Savage Records.

Hi, I'm Dr. Barry Prezant. clinical scholar, researcher, and consultant on autism and neurodiversity, and a Brooklyn boy raised in the big city. And I'm Dave. I'm none of those things, and I grew up on a farm in Illinois. But... Being on the spectrum myself, I have plenty of personal insight to lend. And this is Uniquely Human, the podcast, a show that illuminates and celebrates autism and neurodiversity.

So Dave, today we are having a wonderful guest, and that is Terry Duncan. And we're going to share a little bit more about Terry, actually a lot more in just a few minutes. So welcome to Uniquely Human, the podcast, Terry.

Thank you. It's great to be here. And Terry is a longtime colleague. We've known each other. Oh, my goodness, actually going back before you developed. CASE, Children's Autism Services of Edmonton. We're going to talk about that in greater detail. And you've been doing fabulous work. So let's dive right in and tell you a little bit about Terry.

Terry is the founder and executive director of Children's Autism Services of Edmonton. And for our listeners who are not familiar with Edmonton, it's a city in Western Canada with a population over a million people. She is a speech-language pathologist and has worked with autistic children and others with a broad range of developmental delays for more than 20 years. Terry has a BA in psychology and linguistics.

hey what kind of linguistics buddies there from the university of ottawa and her master's degree in speech and language pathology from the university of alberta And you got started very early working with a young child, a four-year-old child in a family's home. And since that time, you've been fascinated by the complexity of the brain and the resilience of families.

uh dealing with the challenges they face and and i know you and the joys they experience on a daily basis um and here's something very important terry started children's autism services of edmonton In 2004, happy 20th anniversary. It's great. And since that time, the organization has grown to be the largest service provider in Western Canada and definitely one of the most respected in the world.

And we are going to talk not only about the development of case and what you do there, but especially your latest work, which was just published by Neurodiversity Press. And the title is Why Emotional Regulation Might Mean, in capital letters, everything. Reframing Behavior. So, Terry, tell us a little bit about... Your background, well, we heard a little bit about that, but how that led to the development of Children's Autism Services of Edmonton, which from now on we'll refer to as CASE.

Yeah, thanks so much for the lovely intro. And it's been actually since the early 2000s that I've known you. We actually met in Comox, BC, when you were first, first presenting. And it was before. of the certs manuals were published, but I had followed your work and followed your work on echolalia and your early work in speech pathology for years. And so it was just such a joy to meet you and then to find

I know what a kind and giving and fabulous human you were then was just was great. And it's you've been a mentor and our program is based on the certs model. So that's that was. of the key points in my development as a professional and in our organization's development. But again, as you mentioned before that, I was working with a four-year-old in his home in the early 90s back when I used to say I worked in autism.

and people said, what's that? And they'd never even heard the word. So that really gave me that piece of family involvement. The parent of that four-year-old actually created a home program. before home programs even existed. And we just kind of built it together. I then went on to get my master's in speech pathology in 1997. And since that time, I've worked in a variety of settings. And interestingly,

Through those years of working in a number of different settings, nothing really fit for me. Nothing really resonated. And the models we were using just didn't really fit for me. And that's when I came across this. model it really resonated with me and then when we started this organization in 2004 we started it based on the

the certs model and based on that work and based on a developmental approach and an emotional regulation focus. And we've followed that ever since that has been our guiding light. That's been our focus since the beginning. And then.

And over the last 20 years, our organization has just grown exponentially. And there's so much demand for this type of service that even within the first, I started in January and by that first summer, we had 40 families. And now we serve every year hundreds of families, around 500 families across different programs every year. My goodness. And you do so many things through CASE. We do. Lots of different things. So would you like to just briefly describe kind of the age range?

Because I think just saying Children's Autism Services doesn't capture the broad range of supports that you provide. Yeah, it's an organization that provides all kinds of different services. We started off with home programming. So having speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, behavior consultants in the homes with the families doing specialized services.

We also started then after that adding preschool services. So the educational component to it in preschool settings. We added respite as well to our program. And we also do consulting in. rural and remote communities through the education side of things as well. And then in 2008, actually, was our very first conference that we started offering. And I always joke that Barry was our first speaker at our first conference.

conference um all those years ago in 2008 and it i always blame you barry for it being in january because that's when you were available so that's when we did our first conference and then it kind of stuck and it's been this will be a year 17. that we're doing our conference and it's been in January every year and convincing people to come to Alberta in Edmonton in January is always a bit of a challenge.

I remember minus 20 Fahrenheit. I remember the ice on the roads and the huge trucks being jackknifed all over the place. Fun memories. Yeah, it's sometimes pretty cold here in January. It's not always super cold in January. I remember when Emily Rubin came, she said, I said, sometimes it gets down to minus 40. She said, is that Fahrenheit or Celsius? And I said, ooh. The bad news is that it's both.

At minus 40 Celsius and Fahrenheit, sorry. So it can get cold, but some years it's not even, you know, it's barely below freezing. So it really varies, but it's always, it's always funny to talk about why do we do a conference in January? in Alberta. It's Barry's fault. That's when he was available. So we like to joke about that because it's kind of an experience for people to travel to our region.

I've been blamed about a lot of things, but I'll have to add this to my repertoire of what people blame me about. The other conference schedule. The other things that we've added recently to our program is we now also do diagnostics and we also have a community events. We call them EPIC. And this year, for the first time, we opened a brand new private school.

that is specifically designed around the needs of our autistic students. And the building was designed for our students. And we're just starting slow with grades one to three or kindergarten to kindergarten. two to three, and we're going to be expanding that over time. But this just started in September. So that's been a new thing for us this year as well. And your connection to families, I know, is vital because from very early on, I remember.

that you were hand in hand with parents and everything you were developing. Everything we do is a collaboration with families and family-centered programming has been a pillar of our organization since the very beginning. We work with the entire family. It's not just that one child. We work with their whole family.

And that's always been really important. And even in a school program where traditionally the family is someone on the periphery, we incorporate the collaboration with the families as part of the fabric of what we do. It's important to us.

So important. So let's really start digging in here. Emotional regulation has always been, you know, such an essential developmental area in your services. I'm just kind of curious, even outside of that being an important domain of the certs model. How has that awareness and focus evolved for you over the years as you began to serve children and serve families and hear what parents were saying, especially in contrast to what was...

And in some places still is the predominant way of looking at dysregulation. Yeah, it's funny. We've always had the core belief and I've always had the core belief that this work is about supporting learning. It's not about modifying behavior. It's about supporting that learning. And that's been sort of our core belief.

And I've always used the phrase, compliance is not the goal. That's not what we're after. I kind of joke that I'm a relatively non-compliant individual myself. Ask my mother. She knows how non-compliant I've been throughout. my life really um and compliance isn't what we're after we're after thinking beings feeling beings we're after relationships we're after that that trust that that community that sense of of creating

contributing citizens. It's not about compliance. Sometimes we think we want compliance, but that's not actually what it's about. So that's always been a core belief of ours. And that's always been something that we've focused on regulation since the beginning. It's interesting because early on, the term regulation wasn't even, nobody even knew that term. Nobody even knew what dysregulation meant. And now emotional regulation and dysregulation has become so much more common.

It's really evolved to people are really acknowledging the importance of that component that we can't ignore emotional regulation and that we need to have that as an important piece of what we do. Yeah, just a little plug for certainly one of my CERTs collaborators and a person that you've had present, Dr. Amy Laurent, in terms the plug is for her TED Talk.

on compliance and how that, as you have said, is just not, you know, the focus. And we could flip that around and say maybe a term such as self-determination is the more important priority.

I always talk about how we need to get rid of our reliance on compliance because compliance is like junk food. Compliance is a quick and easy fix. But it's like junk food. It's not good for us. It's not good in the long term. Can you impact a child's immediate behavior through compliance based strategies? Yes. Does it help in the long term? No. So it's kind of like junk food. It's not good for you.

you it's not going to help in the long term um but you know it's quick and easy and sometimes what people go to so yeah and i i will say that you know i of course this podcast is all about autism and neurodiversity

But I work in a company setting and I see a lot of people who, it's funny, they would be more compliant subordinates and more productive. if they had some understanding of the physiology of regulation and sort of the... not the tricks, but the methods that people can use to take a dysregulated nervous system and actually self-regulate, self-soothe, stim, even modulate your energy up. So it's funny, like compliance, quote unquote, is important. I mean, we can't.

You can't get much done if you're just a wild, untethered cowboy, you know, guns blazing all the time. So, of course, we need to be able to work together. But you're right. It's that regulation piece. That's that enables people to act in a cooperative way. Yes. And Dave, I'm sure you don't see any dysregulation.

in the corporate world never oh you wouldn't believe how calm and rational and uh and not fearful the average corporate executive is Well, it really is gaining such a, it's getting so much bigger than just neurodiversity regulation and emotional regulation is getting to be so much bigger than just.

in this area so it's crazy like on my social media feed and this might be because i assumed it was because i'm married to a life coach who who deals a large part of her work which she actually draws from Her being essentially an indirect student of Barry's as a speech and language pathologist. But now that she's a and his certs model, but now that she's a life coach, I just assumed it was because, you know, when I'm scrolling through my.

social media feed like Instagram, one in three is some middle-aged person talking about regulation and dysregulation. And I'm like, where are all these experts on regulation? I thought this came from certs. Thank you. Well, there were pioneers who drove this forward and Barry was one of them. And those pioneers that drove it forward, drove it forward and out. And it really expanded into so many different areas, which I think is great.

yeah you know we won't get into the weeds on this but my mentors were some of the most important people of the last century in understanding infant development And they, from the get-go, were talking about regulation and supporting parents of kids who had a wide variety of at-risk infants for a number of different reasons.

So for those listeners that we have who are saying, okay, well, you know, what's emotional regulation in action? Okay. And you know how much we value stories as a way of kind of making concepts come more clearly and really engaging. Do you have any stories you want to share about any? of your students any of your kids and and how you supported them especially when regulation was a very very important priority

Yeah, I mean, I take a very just to let people know, I take a very broad definition of emotional regulation for the purposes of this book and for the purposes of my work. Some people see emotional regulation as a subcomponent of certain things, but I use.

the term in a very, very broad way. And it means to talk about your state, your emotional state, your energy level, your physiological state, as well as your feelings it's not just emotional regulation it's not just about emotions and the emotion words you know sad man happy it's about the broader

concept of our emotional state our energy level our physiological state so not everybody uses a really super broad definition of emotional regulation but that's the the definition that i use and so when we're talking about the It's that regulated state where you need to be in that regulated state to learn and grow. It doesn't just mean being calm. It means being matching the environment.

You know, I talk about in my book, if you're at a hockey game, being calm is not what we need to be. It's everybody. very emotional and very, you know, energized. And so it's, it's, it's matching your emotional state, your arousal state or your emotional regulation with the environment. So the setting and, and that's where we need.

to be in that sort of place of being regulated to be able to learn and grow. And if you're not in that state of emotional regulation, you can't learn and grow. And in the past, we used to think that people could learn grow no matter what emotional state they were in. They could still learn. They could still go through the drills. And it didn't matter what their emotional regulation state was in. So one of the stories in my book is about a student or a child that I was working with.

And he was an older child, about eight or nine. He we were doing this puzzle, this little wood wooden puzzle, peg puzzle, and it was too young for him. He didn't like it. He was bored. And so he kept throwing it across the room because which to me was pretty clear communication of I don't like this. I'm bored. So instead of that, because of the program that I was consulting in the.

protocol was to physically have him go and pick that up and put it back in. And it didn't matter that he was upset. It didn't matter that he was dysregulated. It didn't matter he was going to learn to comply. And that was their goal. And they called it a non-preferred activity.

And that notion that we just had to make him comply, no matter what his regulation was, was really felt wrong to me. And in the end, and it was a very emotional thing. And I talked about it in the introduction of the book. And I was so upset having to do that. And all I did was destroy the relationship with him by physically forcing him to pick that up while he was fighting against it. I destroyed our relationship. And the only thing I taught him that day.

was that if I'm bigger than you, I can make you do what I want you to do. That's all I taught him. I didn't teach him anything else. And then, of course, he got bigger and he got bigger than other people. He learned that lesson well, that he can now make people do things they don't want to do. And I destroyed my relationship with him.

That for me was really hard. So I learned that if we can really just focus on that emotional regulation, the relationships and the trust, that really has better outcomes. And one more story about the.

A big part of regulation is that sensory piece and being able to regulate your system through sensory strategies.

On the front of the book, there is a picture of a window and there's light coming through the window. And the reason I wanted to capture that in a photo is that I remember sitting and watching a child and they kept... saying oh he's he won't stop uh flicking his hands in the air he won't stop stimming they called it he won't stop and he was flicking his hands through the air and running them through the air and he wouldn't stop doing that and i was brought in to get him

to stop doing all these behaviors. And so I was watching and I was trying to figure out what was going on. And I watched, I happened to catch him sitting in a beam of light. And if we see a beam of light, you can see dust everywhere. There's dust all around us all the time. When he was flicking his hands through the air in that beam of light, the swirls and eddies and designs it was creating in that dust was mesmerizing. So I ended up just sitting and staring at that.

And then I reached up and I was doing it in the air myself. And somebody looked over and said, what are you doing? I said, watch. Look at the dust coming through. It's fascinating. And then I realized, okay, well, that's what he's watching. And for him, that was calming. That was a calming sensory break that he needed. And following that kind of calming sensory break, he was able to re-engage in the action.

So it was a matter of talking to them about that's an emotionally regulating time for him. He needs to have that time, give him that time, let him have that opportunity to do that. And then he can re-engage. I wanted to try and capture that a little bit on the cover. It's hard to capture that experience in an image, but that was kind of the design image for the cover.

I love that. By the way, you know, that paper flap that's around a book, I think they call that a dust jacket, don't they? So it's very apropos of the medium. That's true. That's a good point. I was just going to say another lesson from corporate life here is that if anybody thinks that they are not somebody who. Like if if they think that they can't relate to what it means to need a moment of regulation, either up or down, just think about how long do you sit at your desk when.

If something is happening that is starting to frustrate you, frustrate you, frustrate you, most people will stand up and walk away from their desk for a minute. All of a sudden, they need to use the bathroom. They need to get a drink. They need to get a cup of coffee. And, you know, I think it doesn't matter what it looks like. We're all doing the same things. It's just.

if you're autistic, you're more likely to be flicking your hand in the, in the dust, in the sunbeam and watching the dust. You're more likely, but we all have this, you know, this tendency. And, and, you know, Your example, and actually both examples, in the corporate setting as well as Terry's example of the little guy with the dust, it really illustrates...

that it's not just the emotional regulation just isn't, okay, how do we help this person be regulated? It also is about seeing strategies that a person already brings in their life. To be well regulated and then making a decision. Is it working for them? OK, because some, as we know, some strategies to try to regulate may not be effective or might be just so distracting or disruptive that we.

have to support. But then it's not just stop that. It's about, okay, let's help this person build a repertoire and build self-awareness around that. One other quick point, one of our... Guests Elaine Hall, who also you know well, Terry, she gives the example of when her son Neil was young and he would get down sometimes outside. And if there was a car with a shiny hook cap.

he would kind of get down and stare at it and stare at it. And she wasn't sure what was going on. People were saying, oh, that's terrible. It's just an undesirable behavior until she got down with him. And so the important piece that I'll add to what you're saying, Terry, is you try to understand that child's experience. You really, you know, what we call the deep why. Why is this child doing it? And you have to be there to move on.

effectively and respectfully in that instance. Yeah, absolutely. And just recognizing that a lot of these kids do develop regulation strategies and some of them. sometimes have to be shifted. There's some safety issues sometimes, and sometimes you have to shift them, but it's a matter of shifting it to other strategies that also meet that same need and getting the why and getting it to a strategy that does meet that.

same need that isn't unsafe. But also, there's a lot of these things where we don't want the kids to do those things, not because it's unsafe, but just... Because it doesn't fit with their ideas, how things that should be. There was one kid who used to, they called it doing his ABCs, and he would just recite the ABCs over and over and over again. And that recitation, that predictability was calming for him.

But they kept saying, oh, it's so intrusive. It's so abnormal. It's so weird. So I helped them to realize it's not the reciting of the ABCs that's the problem. It's where and when. And let's teach him to be able to step. away and to be able to have a place. And in fact, he used to also like to walk in circles. So we found a space in the classroom where he could be, when he needed a regulation break, he could go to the back of that classroom, walk in circles and do his ABCs.

Then we explain to all of the other students, this is what's calming for him. You know how it's calming for you to hum or to listen to music or whatever you do to calm. This is what's calming for him. So when he's starting to struggle. He needs to step away and do his ABCs and walk. And that was something that it's a little bit of...

I always talk about it's about both. It's about changing the environment, making some of these things acceptable and allowed in that environment whenever possible. And it's about teaching skills and strategies that the individual can use. And it's about pairing those. It's not.

about one or the other. It's about both. And I learned that from the certs model. It's not just about the certs model was one of the first that identified that those transactional supports in the environment also need to change in addition to the building of skills. Yeah, that's what we refer to as there's a time and a place strategy. But what you're doing while you're doing it. is you're letting the child know, I get you, I get this is something you need to do. And it's not, again,

There used to be a website for a private practice in Massachusetts. It was called stopthatbehavior.com. Oh, geez. literally can we make sure that every politician in the united states gets on that website and learns from it and you know the the The deep consideration of what is the child's experience, and especially if a child's getting increasingly dysregulated and then we do something that is just throwing gasoline on the fire, I mean, that's not helpful.

at all. And as you said, it interferes with trust and relationships. So, so important. I wanted to also just make one more point on that.

on emotional regulation. If anybody out there listening is thinking that, so what are they talking about? Just like calming down? That's not it. You're not, you don't have to be calm to be regulated. In fact, the regulation is a very deliberate strategy. It's a...

It's a process, right? When you're not feeling calm, that's when you regulate. It's not the same as just, oh, yeah, everything's puppies and bacon and I'm calm. Because there's also... upwards regulation right wiggling your knee if you're needing to pay attention to something uh and your your system is just in low gear that happens to me sometimes where i'm like oh my gosh so there's uh

Plenty of different. So I also just wanted to make that note in case anybody was mistakenly assuming that we're talking about staying calm. It's not that. We'd like to take a moment to thank you for listening to Uniquely Human the podcast. It is so gratifying to hear that so many of you find value in what we share.

It is gratifying. And it's so much fun making this show together, Barry. Being able to meet with you every week and all the guests and listener support that we've received. It's such a joy to make this show. And of course, we are commercial free. But Barry and I would invite you to support this show in a number of different ways. That could be buying our books or even inviting us to speak live or virtually to your organization or to your community.

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Contact us directly on the links on our website and recommend Uniquely Human, the podcast to those in your lives. In conclusion, we are so grateful to you, our Uniquely Human community, for your support. And loyalty. And we'll be keeping at it. Yes. Thank you all so much. Now back to the show.

You know, something that Terry also touched upon is some innovative work doing, and I think you cited in your book, of Amy Laurent and Jacqueline Faddy. And just relating to what Dave just said. That for some people, it may not be the experience of emotion the way neurotypicals experience emotion, but it might be experiencing energy levels and understanding when.

You're much too low energy or you're running on fumes as opposed to, OK, you know, my energy is bubbling and boiling. And that is not conducive for me to be able to learn or to engage with others.

So there's so much interesting stuff going on right now in terms of regulation. But I think one piece that a lot of people don't understand, Terry, that I'd love for you to comment on. is that regulation is a developmental process. It's not this one static thing that, you know, is an issue or is part of the experience of it.

two-year-old, and guess what? For a 15-year-old, you have regulation. We define it the same way. It looks the same way. Do you want to talk about the developmental piece, especially because you serve kids at very different developmental levels? Absolutely. It really is about looking at over the lifespan and looking at regulation over the lifespan and how it changes. We have a very sort of a lifespan approach where we look at...

very young kids in a very different way. And as they grow and develop into adults, their regulation needs change. So sometimes and often with very young children, it's about giving them more tools and giving, you know, giving them ways to regulate. And sometimes our young kids don't have a tool. blocks of regulation strategies. They don't know what's going to work and help. And so it's a matter of looking at those things and of looking at the factors that are influencing their regulation.

Like their sleep and like their nutrition and like their physical activity. And, you know, like, do they have anxieties? Do they have, you know, what are, what's their... And so looking at all of those factors that influence their regulation and supporting them to develop tools and strategies. And then as we get older. Those will change and the tools and strategies change and individuals will develop their own that are good fit.

for their own needs and for them to learn to read as as individuals get older we often will teach to read their own state read their regulation and and how is your regulation and then choosing the tool that's going to fit. So building that ability to self-regulate. But one of the other things that I've learned over the years, too, I used to think that first you teach co-regulation. regulation and you help regulate. And then once you've helped them regulate, then they do it on their own.

But I've recognized in my life in particular, I co-regulate with others all the time. And we don't get rid of co-regulation once we learn to self-regulate. It's not a first you do this, then you do this. Co-regulation and regulating and helping one another regulate happens throughout our lifetimes. And I often rely on others for regulation. My sister is a huge regulation support for me.

And always has been. And that's something that doesn't change over your lifetime. You continue to co-regulate over your lifespan. It just tends to look different at different stages. Yes. And that also includes knowing who to avoid if they have the opposite effect of how can you regulate? Those dysregulating influences. It goes both ways. Yeah, good point. I find I've got a lot of those.

And probably the biggest dysregulating influence I have is my own brain because I guarantee it's not the people around me that are the problem if it's more than one. It's probably me. well a good strategy would be to learn how to talk to your brain and say stop doing that yeah yeah yeah exactly well and then we get into some of the metacognitive strategies that some of our older kids and some of our adults use and those are those metacognitive things about

the self-awareness, awareness of your body, awareness of your state, and then awareness of your thoughts and awareness that was metacognitive, thinking about our thinking. And if we're thinking about our thinking in that kind of metacognitive way, that brings in different... strategies. I had to do a little self-talk earlier today because my computer was changed and it was highly dysregulating for me. I had to have some self-talk around that.

Some of those more metacognitive strategies are also things that we look at supporting and developing with our youth and our adults. Yeah, and that self-awareness of knowing. In a sense, what's in your toolbox? What's the range of possibilities? I always like to give the example of if you're going to a very important meeting, maybe it's a job interview.

And there's an accident on the freeway or on the road you're going. Everything's all backed up. And you say, oh, my God, what's going to happen? I'm definitely going to be late. For many of us, it's almost as if we go into this automatic mode. Oh. i could call and tell them there's an accident i could get off an earlier exit and take the streets rather than staying on the highway oh i could call my friend who works at that company and let them we almost automatically

Talk about two or three or four strategies to reduce the anxiety that we're feeling. And, you know, one of the things and Terry, you know, this being kind of exposed and being an expert in the search model is that it's. Regulation is something that for neurotypicals, and I'm not saying all of us, but for many neurotypicals, we develop...

strategies that we see other people using. We can assess, is this effective or not effective for me? Do I shift to something else? And I think one of the problems with people with neurodevelopmental differences, and especially autistic people,

is sometimes they get locked into one or two strategies. So if I'm feeling anxious in the classroom because the teacher's talking too fast and too much, I bolt out of the classroom. As opposed to say, I need a break or... saying to yourself i could ask the teacher afterwards what she was saying um and i think that's an important piece that expansion of the repertoire that you referred to earlier

Yeah, and developing that toolkit and developing those options and ways that we can regulate. And that's what I really wanted to make sure that I included as many ways in my book that people can... can use to regulate as many strategies as possible. And that's really what I wanted to cover. But I think, too, the one other point to make is that

We're living in a time that is very overwhelming. Nowadays, and through everything that we've gone through in the past... You know, even in the past decade, it is there's so much change. There's, you know, so many things have happened even in the last five years that it can be life can be really overwhelming and sometimes neurotypical folks.

are getting to that tipping point where they're just so overwhelmed they can't even think of strategies to use and they can't even think of ways to to regulate when and there are so many people that are overwhelmed and and running on high, running on and slightly dysregulated for most of the day. And that's hard. And that's why I wanted to make sure that there were lots of strategies that neurotypical people can use too. use.

And I gave examples of myself and some of the strategies that I use. And it's not always easy for me to maintain my own emotional regulation because the world can be a pretty overwhelming place. And especially now. And that's why there's so many things that we can do and so many tools. And it's so interesting that we've learned a lot of these tools from neurodiverse individuals and from the needs of those neurodiverse individuals. We've learned that, wow. these things work with

All kinds of kids, all kinds of adults. And that's what I always talk to teachers about is that if you are using a strategy for your one particular neurodiverse child, neurodiverse student, if that autistic student responds well to some. something, try it with all of the others because it works with them too. And that those regulations, strategies, emotional regulation can benefit all of us. Yeah. Yeah. That's.

It's the range of attempts. So you got a child, the fire alarm or the fact that we're three minutes past, you know, what... we said we were going to be doing right now, that sets a child into sort of a, that spiral. We've all experienced that many times ourselves. And maybe this week, the thing we tried wasn't the thing. And so next week.

Rest assured, there will be some other thing. There will be somebody pops a paper bag unexpectedly, and now we're back into it. So I think there's always going to be plenty of opportunities. One thing, and I don't want to get stuck in a...

like in a specific minutiae sort of example. But when I think about the metacognitive stuff, is there a clever way that you found to... coach, uh, young kids, uh, like children, um, who elementary school age will say, uh, to coach them to start to be able to, um, think about what they're thinking? Or is that such an abstract idea that it's just really difficult to introduce that as a tool for somebody of that age?

There are ways to introduce that with young kids as well. A part of it comes from often we will start with more body awareness. So if you can think about what your body feels like, then you can get to the point where you can think about what you're thinking. But there's been some really great work, even work that Carol Gray has done with comic strip conversations and that notion of a thinking bubble above your head. And what do you think?

thinking and then another person with a thinking bubble over there and what are they thinking and you know she's used it as this notion of my thoughts aren't the same as your thoughts and some of that perspective taking but we've also used that notion of using thought bubbles to help us identify what are we thinking? What are the thoughts that are in our heads right now?

And if we can use some visual supports for that, if we can use some, and of course, it depends on the child and on their developmental level. But using those kinds of supports to help them think about their thinking can be really effective in moving towards regulation strategies that are more metacognitive. OK, let's thank you for that. That's very interesting. Yeah, I think one of our mantras is and I'm going back to cert. Sorry about that. But, you know, is if something is.

So kind of fleeting and abstract, let's make it more concrete. So at a metacognitive level, it could be if the cafeteria is too loud and... As Terry, as you just said, maybe have some visuals. I could do A, I could ask for a break. I could do B, maybe S to sit at the quiet table in the corner. I could do C, you know.

Say it's too loud, please. Whatever might be effective and what might work in that instance. But, you know, I think what you're saying also, Terry, and I love the analogy to, you know. What a dysregulating world we live in now. You know, it's so important getting back to the title of your book. Emotional regulation might mean everything. And I think.

What so many people are feeling now, I mean, it just is so illustrated by that. But to operationalize it, we could literally say, what are the dysregulating factors? that we are immersed in and exposed to every day, and then what strategies can we use to try to deal with those factors, not be hyper-focused on those factors or whatever.

Yeah, there are a lot of factors that dysregulate us every day, all day and coming up with the strategies and the tools. The thing, too, about this kind of an approach is that.

It's not a cookie cutter. It's not a one size fits all. And because it's not a cookie cutter and a one size fits all, it's hard. We need to individualize. So we do need to look at what are the factors that are dysregulating? Why are they dysregulating? What are some of the things we can do about it? And so it's all about, you know, that detective work and that figuring out. things and then individualizing and trying things. And some things might work and others might not.

And that makes it much more difficult because we need to individualize. And it's not the old way of doing, here's the, do all of these things and tick them off and here's your program that's done. It's harder. And because it's harder, it then gets more difficult to track, to have data, to have progress, to demonstrate progress.

It is a much more difficult approach to use. And, you know, in some ways, a behavioral, you know, the old school discrete trial training stuff where you tick the boxes off after you did your trial. easier it's it's right or wrong it's there's a clear answer it's easier it's black and white this is gray and it's individualized and it's harder to do and it takes a lot more

a lot deeper thought. We have to really be thoughtful about some of these things. And that makes it a lot harder. But just because it's harder doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I always think of the quote, You know, when you know better, you do better. And we know better now. We know what works better. And we know that this is a better approach. It's a much more humanized, humanistic approach that really focuses on trust.

and relationships and all of those kinds of things we've talked about. It is the approach that we need to move towards. And we know that the outcomes are better, but it's harder. You know, we need to acknowledge that it's not easy to do these things, but just because they're not easy to do doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do them because, you know, the neurodiverse individuals that we work with deserve better.

We need to do better. But it's hard. And if you do look through a developmental lens, you always have to ask, you know, what... impact is this strategy that i or our team what impact does that have on this child's long-term development so as you said at the very beginning yeah we know how to make kids comply okay

But that would be certain kids, other kids who have more kind of fire in their belly to be self-determined. It's just throwing more gas on the fire. For other kids, you can have a compliant, depressed.

who has very little sense of self because all the control comes from the outside. And they don't have that sense in their lives. So jumping off of that, you do still run into... organizations or educational treatment programs that have not yet either been exposed to, or if they've been exposed to an emotion regulation focus, they haven't embraced it. I know we could talk another hour about this, but what would you say to people like that?

Well, again, it comes back to, you know, when we know better, we do better. Sometimes it is just about learning the approach and learning the difference between a compliance-based approach and a more emotional regulation-based approach. But it's also more about, you know, I find that if they can see the outcomes, if they can see the difference in the outcome, that that really is.

You know, for me, changing hearts and minds means showing them it matters and it makes a difference. And so we will often go into a classroom and work with one child and show them the change. see that change, they then want to become champions of this and use it with all kinds of kids. So, you know, sometimes it's that one by one kind of change that really matters for people. It really is about making sure that they understand that.

We all do things differently as we grow and learn. And it's not bad that we did those things in the past. I made a ton of mistakes all throughout my career, all along, everybody does. And now we know that there are better ways to do things. And now we've learned. And as we learn that there are better ways to do things, we need to shift our practice and grow and change. And there are still those who want that very concrete control-based, compliance-based approach. And it's a matter of really...

showing them what a difference it can make when we do shift that control to the child, where we do shift that shift away from that power struggle. And, you know, I think in a way, deep down, all of us know. that that that is a better approach it is a more humanizing and respectful approach and it is more of a neurodiversity affirming approach and when we when we know that and we head in that direction um i think

I think people can change and grow and learn. It just takes time and patience and compassion, really. And it's such an importance. I was going to say not only for functioning in society the way that society needs us to when we become adults and even when we're kids, but it's so important to develop this habit of regulation and the tools and strategies that come with it.

If for nothing else, then to avoid the pitfalls of chemical dependency when you become an adult. The people who are feeling so... pushing the dysregulation down, down, down until five o'clock. And then they open up the bottle and then it's there, you know, drunk the rest of the night. Right. And then they wake up tomorrow, wash, rinse, repeat. So, uh, it can be, it can be, uh,

a real life-changing skill to have to avoid those trappings. And isn't it also sometimes, I'm going back to younger kids now, that it's the parents who lead the way.

the parents who say well i've been told that when my child does this you know i see it as my child being in distress and i've been told to ignore the behavior and i just can't You know, I see it as my child being in distress and I need to provide that co-regulation or we use the term mutual regulation as well, because that's my parental instinct.

I want my child to be well-regulated and a child is not going to go from a dysregulated state to being well-regulated unless they have good self-regulatory abilities by ignoring the behavior. It just doesn't work that way. And sometimes we need to give parents and caregivers permission to follow their instincts because they've been told all of these things by lots of different people. I'm often letting parents know, yes, you need to follow your instincts. You've got...

You want to help them in this moment of distress. And that is the way to go. And making sure that they understand that, you know, they can follow those instincts. Yes. Yeah.

So what do you see just looking forward into the future? It just strikes me that one of the areas of supporting neurodivergent kids and families is... One of the most fertile areas is this emotional regulation area that, you know, thank goodness the field has. really dove into this just in recent years and we're still learning. It's relatively new, at least within, you know, kids with neurodevelopmental differences. It's been around, you know, for some time for typically developing kids.

understanding the notion of regulation. But what do you see as some of the major challenges, questions? Where are we going with all of this? Where do you hope to see us going? Well, I'm optimistic that we have seen a broader acceptance of this concept. Because I used to feel a little bit like there were a few of us out there as lone voices in the wind trying to shift in this direction. And I feel like we have shifted. And because of those pioneers out there, we've shifted the way.

We practice and we've shifted the way that we support students and adults. So I feel optimistic that we're going to continue down that path and continue in the right direction. And really I see us embracing this concept to deal with that overwhelm. The overwhelm is not going to go away. We're not going to all of a sudden live in a less overwhelming world.

But what I'm hopeful about is that we, despite the fact that our world gets more and more overwhelming, sometimes more and more information, more and more diverse with. with all kinds of things coming at us, that we are able to continue to build those toolboxes and those ways of managing our emotional regulation. And I think that if we can all... continue to build

those strategies and those tools to manage dysregulation, then we can continue to progress as communities and move forward as communities. I feel like this is something that shifts everyone in the right direction. And if we can just keep going, sometimes I say that as long as we're facing the right direction, we're maybe not moving forward as fast as we'd like, but as long as we're facing the right direction, we're okay.

But I do feel optimistic that this does, that these kind of things are changing and we are starting to improve our ability to regulate as communities. So important and so needed. And I just wanted to drop one more little concept that maybe we'll do a whole focus on in the future, which is all about regulation. And that is trauma-informed work.

once we get to people who are exposed to factor circumstances in their lives that what they experience is so extreme that basically they're traumatized by that and we know that's become a huge issue in the autism and neurodivergent community. Although interestingly, I did feel ever since the beginning, you know, we talked about trauma-informed therapy. I've always felt like the SIRTS model is a trauma-informed model, even before trauma-informed therapy was a word. I agree.

It's always been trauma informed and neurodiversity affirming. So we have that already as as one of our tools. And I do talk a little bit about trauma in the book. I touch on it very briefly, but it is it is just.

such a fascinating topic yeah and an example again of people outside of our professions in our field have done a much deeper dive into that and it's time to really look carefully and not what i refer to as kind of superficial lip service oh yeah we're trauma-informed it is such a deep look at human development and brain behavior relationships and emotional memory and so many things that

we know are very, very important in a person's development. Well, Terry, this has been eye-opening. As you could see, we could go on. As always, yes.

I hope our listeners found this episode most regulating. That's right. And thank you for the gift of your book, Why Emotional Regulation Might Mean Everything. And our listeners can... Go to the Neurodiversity Press website to order it, or it'll be on Amazon as well, I believe. I know Michael wasn't thrilled about that because Michael believes in independent publishing. Finally said, we have to get this out to as many people as possible. Right. Yeah. And so big, big congratulations.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for your kind words and for the foreword. That was so meaningful to me. It just meant a lot that you did that. you've been such an influence in, in my career and the trajectory that I, that really meant a lot. Great. Oh, that's, and we all learn together, don't we? Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Be well, take care. Thank you. Bye.